Did You Know: Manav Vij's Debut In Bollywood Was With The 2002 Film 'Shaheed-E-Azam'

Actors have an ironical life, when they get recognition, that's when people start thinking that he's probably just got lucky but his years of struggle, his failures are left unappreciated and are never commended.

One such actor is Manav Vij. Though we've now seen him playing some amazing roles in Bollywood films but for those who think that's he's just been spotted by a Director and his tryst with Bollywood is just 2 years old, you are so mistaken!

His Bollywood debut happened in the year 2002 with a film titled 'Shaheed-E-Azam'. Iqbal Dhillon’s 'Shaheed-E-Azam', was premiered at Jagat Theatre in Sector 17 on May 31, 2002 and people thronged the theatre in huge numbers.

The film, based on the motto “History as it is, Bhagat Singh as he was”, did justice to the subject and treated the subject with the required amount of dignity without getting into the characteristic melodrama of Bollywood productions. The film that was directed by Sukumar Nair of Shaheed-e-Mohabbat fame, had many actors from the Punjabi film industry including Sonu Sood, Dev Gill, Binnu Dhillon, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Naresh Kathooria, Bonnie Vij, Shama Sikandar, Rajinder Gupta, Sadhna Singh, Sunil Sinha, Gaurav Trehan, Raj Zutsi, Gurkirtan, B.N. Sharma, Darshan Aulakh, Gursharan Singh, Vinod Sharma, Amar Noorie, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Prabhsharan Kaur, Master Jaspreet and Hollywood artistes — Ronsladzyck, Stephan Sands, Aden and James McHandry. It was actually a delight to see all these actors in this film doing their part pretty well.

The film is a well made product and keeps you hooked on to it till the end. Director Sukumar Nair tried his best to give a real touch to the story by studying the subject for more than 18 months under the guidance of Prof Jagmohan Singh and Baba Ram Singh (95), a nephew of Bhagat Singh. The producer claimed that 80 main artistes and 10,000 junior artistes participated in the marathon schedule of shooting for more than 100 days. The shoot happened in Ferozepur.

Manav Vij played Sukhdev while the lead role of Bhagat Singh was played by Sonu Sood, who made his debut with this film and Rajguru was played by Dev Gill.